It's the Summer of Love again as streaming services unleash romcoms for the season
To address the drought of romcoms after its golden run in the nineties, online streaming services handed to us a clutch of breezy romance movies in a sweet package called the 'Summer of Love' beginning last year.
Now, while this may have simply been a marketing strategy to sell a series of romantic comedies in the summer, the warm relationship that summers and romcoms share goes a long way. With Netflix's latest one for the season, 'The Last Summer,' almost here, we take a look at why summers are naturally the most perfect season to be in love, on-screen or of it
'The Last Summer' premieres May 3 on Netflix and follows a group of young adults making the most of their last summer vacation together, before going away to college. As the trailer suggests, it is their last chance to spark some romance and make memories before parting ways.
In an exclusive interview with MEA WorldWide (MEAWW), most of the stars of the film, including KJ Apa, Tyler Posey, and Maia Mitchell, smiled fondly as they remembered summer romances or flings they had had.
Romantic comedies have a lot of viewership coming from young adults and teenagers as many of these movies double up as coming of age dramas. So it always made sense to have these movies coming out during the summer vacations when teenagers would have all the time in the world to catch up on some good old romance with no homework to impede their fun.
In case you're struggling to think of an example, let us help: 'The Princess Diaries'. It was released in July 2001 and is a classic coming-of-age romcom. The summer is also a period of relaxation and fun, not just for teenagers but also for adults, although their vacations may be way shorter. Away on a vacation in a strange town where you're comfortably anonymous and meeting a lovely stranger in a fleeting romance, which may turn out to be something more -- you have the perfect recipe for a summer rom-com.
There are innumerable movies made around this plot, the temporariness of the experience often serving as fuel to set the sparks aflame. Not to mention, summer is the season of fun and frolic and who wouldn't want to let loose and enjoy while on vacation?
Romantic cliches like chasing each other down a beach and picnicking in an open meadow are overused because no matter how many times over, it will still make a hopeless romantic's heart flutter.
Summers are a collection of long, lazy afternoons, slow, evening strolls, and clear, starry skies. There are no layers, family dinners, or New Year's Eve parties. The sweltering, sensual season provides the perfect canvas for love to blossom.
"The Canadian literary theorist, Northrop Fry, provides insight into its origins. As with the seasons of the year, genres deploy archetypes of birth, maturation, decay, death, and rebirth, all within natural cycles," said Antonio Barrenechea, Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington.
Professor Barrenechea opines that for Fry, comedy belongs to spring, and romance to summer. "Nature as background thus directs the foreground of social ordering and human affairs. Greenery and florals are to the romantic comedy as deserts are to the Western, and dark places and climates are to horror," Barrenechea added.
This is translated beautifully on screen in movies like 'Call Me By Your Name', 'My Best Friend's Wedding', and the 'Before Sunrise' movies.
Jesse and Celine reminisce their rendezvous in Vienna in the second movie of the trilogy, as "The summer of ’94". While their romance panned out over three decades or so, most summer romances burn out pretty quickly. But that is what makes them so charming and why we need many more romantic comedies set in skinny-dipping, petal-plucking summers vacations.
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